The Devil Behind the Details
by buttercups3
Summary: In the episode The Devil in the Details season 5 , Sweets is treated rather harshly by the victim's mother. This one-shot continues the episode to let you know what B.Duck was feeling and a bit about his past.


_Hey all! This is a one-shot moved from my LJ account again (though I've renamed it). If you read it over there, it ain't new. Looking back at this, do I have a thing for Vietnamese girls or what? :) I've rated it T, but it discusses first-time sex, though not in much detail. If that offends, don't read. Also, the bullying is rather graphic, so if THAT offends, don't read._

_Spoilers are for the Devil in the Details, which this fic continues. Disclaimer: Don't own anything Bones related except tons o' love for Sweets.  
_

_Italics below the line are dialogue from the episode, the rest is original._

_

* * *

_

_Mrs. Lowry: "Gabe wouldn't kill his brother."_

_Sweets: "Mrs. Lowry, what you and your family have been through…it's almost unbearable."_

_Mrs. L: "Gabe loved his brother. Why would he do such a thing?"_

_Sweets: "We know that Gabe went to visit Neil the night that he disappeared. We believe that there was another patient named Philip who told Gabe about Neil's hideout in the basement. Gabe found Neil shooting up heroin. Gabe struck Neil with a pipe. Neil fell back into a transformer and was electrocuted."_

_Mrs. L: "But the church…the burning on the altar?"_

_Sweets: "We all become angry at God sometimes, Mrs. Lowry."_

_Mrs. L: "Who could blame him? Why did God do this to our family? We were good people and then…this."_

_Sweets: "I'm sorry for your pain."_

_Mrs. L: "You…you can't even imagine my pain."_

_Sweets looked down._

He thought to himself: you're right. I have no idea what you're going through. I have a better sense of the hell Neil endured. A metaphoric devil had surrounded Sweets no matter how he tried to escape as a child and adolescent. After he'd been removed from his abusive father, Lance had become the author of his own private hell, believing that no one could love him. He had felt (and even still felt at times) that his damaged flesh rendered him so ugly that no one could actually desire to look at, let alone touch, his mangled body. He might as well have horns protruding from his head or a tail dangling from his back. As he looked through the one-way glass at Gabe, he swallowed the lump in his throat and tried not to think of his adoptive parents and what they had endured raising him.

When Sweets had turned 21, he had sent his parents a letter. This turned out to be shortly before both of their deaths. His letter had thanked them for their incredible kindness in deciding to adopt him as a broken 6 year old. It thanked them for their abiding patience as he proved to be a very difficult child to raise.

Lance shuddered as he thought about his attempt to kill himself at 14. He was in high school but already taking senior-level classes. Though his parents begged to have his PE requirement waived, the administration insisted that the state mandated physical fitness. Lance was not exempt. This meant that every time Lance undressed or tried to take a shower, a group of hecklers would torment him. They would steal his clothes, swat at him with their towels, and jeer. Sweets understood now that their aggression was probably a manifestation of their discomfort with seeing such physical indicators of graphic violence on a classmate (in the form of his scars). Further, he now understood that he had also been a willing participant in victimhood, refusing to stand up for himself. He still allowed himself to be bullied to this day, for instance, by Booth. But at least Booth appeared genuinely fond of him.

On one particularly bad occasion, the boys from gym class had stolen Lance's clothes and his underwear while he was in the shower. They cornered him as he was returning to his locker and taunted, "You think you can ever be clean? You'll always be a mess!" Lance tried to move away but they caught him, held him down and urinated on him. Some of the pee splashed on his face.

The boys laughed and ran away. Sweets had gone back to rinse off dejectedly and became dismayed when he returned to his locker to find his clothes missing—both civilian and gym clothes. Only his shoes were left. Wrapped in a towel and shaking with humiliation, he found the PE proctor.

"Uh, Mr. Stevens, do you have some extra clothes in the lost and found? I…err…lost mine."

"What, Sweets? Clothes don't just get up and walk away. What happened to yours!" Mr. Stevens demanded the answer, but Lance wouldn't talk.

Finally, Mr. Stevens gave him a pair of sweats and a t-shirt and told him to get to class. He was concerned about the potential bullying incident and decided to head over to the office to report it to the principal.

Lance did not return to class. He walked home immediately and headed for his room. His parents wouldn't be home for a while. Lance detoured to the bathroom and began robotically removing razor blades from his father's razor. He proceeded to make light cuts on his arm in a small row. He wondered if he had the guts to end his own life, and then the image of the boys peeing on him returned. He caused everyone he encountered to either experience pain (like his parents) or to act out (like the bullies). He brought nothing good to the world. After contemplating his pathetic, short existence for nearly an hour, Lance cut deeply into both of his wrists. He sat in the bath tub, waiting for peace.

Sweets was found by his father, who had received a worried call from the principal. Lance did not die, but his parents did pull him from high school. Lance took his exit exams and once he had healed adequately mentally and physically, he continued on to college.

In Sweet's letter to his parents he apologized for how selfish and deluded he was as a 14 year old. He apologized also for the time in college when he became so overwhelmed that he had a nervous breakdown, and committed himself to a psychiatric facility without telling them. It was weeks before he called them to let them know what had happened. He was 17 years old.

The breakdown occurred after his first (consensual) sexual experience. Sweets had been small for his age and finally started to mature and fill out in his late teens. For this reason and his reticent disposition, most girls had avoided him. He'd never even been kissed. One of his classmates, Chelsea Tran, from his cognitive psychology course, had taken an interest in him. She kept asking to borrow notes and showing up when he was at the coffee cart. Finally, she had asked him out on a date to the dining hall.

Lance liked Chelsea—she was highly intelligent, a little shy, like him, and played the violin beautifully. She was his first kiss, his first date, his first everything. He eventually became nervous as their kissing turned to making out and fondling. He never let her take off his clothes. But on one occasion, she was fully disrobed, wearing only her panties and bra, and they were making out on her bed.

She tried once again to remove his shirt.

"No—" Lance exclaimed violently.

"What is wrong with you?" Chelsea asked, rather unkindly. But it was natural for her to be frustrated.

Looking at his girlfriend's angry face, Lance finally complied. He removed his shirt and turned around to reveal his scars. She recoiled slightly, but recomposed herself and asked what had happened.

Lance responded, "I was abused by my biological father as a child." He did not elaborate. His face was set.

Chelsea said, "I'm sorry"—Lance's least favorite response to his past trauma—but to his relief she began running her hands back over his body. They did end up having extremely awkward sex—the first time for both of them. Lance could barely concentrate on the new sensations his body was experiencing, he was so distraught over revealing his body to her. He felt so unattractive that he just wanted to hide. His body was still gangly and loose, and he struggled to even perform the sex act, let alone make it enjoyable for either of them. Chelsea was clearly in pain.

"I'm, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you," Sweets said dressing after it was all over. Both of them felt vaguely humiliated. Lance thought, if this is sex then why have I been waiting for it for so long?

"It's…it's ok. I've heard it hurts for a lot of women the first time."

"I'll…see you soon?" Lance asked, almost pleading. Chelsea just nodded and turned away. But she never returned his calls, and they never got together again. Lance became so consumed by embarrassment, self-loathing, and pain that eventually he broke. He believed that he would never experience a healthy sexual relationship courtesy of the impacts of his biological father's abuse. When he found himself removing the blades of his roommate's razor, he ran out the door and straight to student health.

These two events and other smaller ones—like the time he had tried to steal his neighbor's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Party Wagon and had ended up falling out of a tree—had pained his parents deeply. Yet, they had stood by them. He was so grateful that he had no words to express his love for them, but in the letter he had tried.

They had written him back the following week, and this letter had become his single-most important possession. Second was his mother's engagement ring, which she had given him before she died, apologizing that she would not get to meet the future love of his life. Lance didn't feel so sure that any woman would ever love him that much, but his mother was confident. In their responsive letter, they had written:

"To our dear sweet boy, who gave us the gift of a renewed life,

Before we met you we had a deep sadness and longing for a child. It was the greatest devastation to your mother that she could not bear children. We did not have enough money to adopt for a long time. We promised ourselves that if we adopted a child, we wanted to give him all of the best opportunities in life. By the time we could provide in this manner, as you well know, we were already quite elderly. But the moment we laid eyes on you, you flooded our life with inexpressible joy. You completed our family. You were absolutely worth waiting for.

We know you've had a hard time in life, despite our attempts to protect you. You are a sensitive soul, and you have experienced more pain in the first 21 years of life then most humans will ever have to endure. But you have endured it well, son. You've made mistakes, but you've grown from them into a wonderfully vibrant, astoundingly intelligent and kind young man. We are immensely proud of you. We love you so much. We will never stop accepting your apologies with grace and loving you in your weaknesses and strengths. We know you feel the same way about us. We will always be there, whether physically or in your heart.

So much love,

Mom and Dad"

Lance had the words of this letter memorized, which he chanted to himself as a kind of mantra since he had lost his parents.

Finally, Sweets turned back to Mrs. Lowry after five minutes of pregnant silence. "I'll leave you to your thoughts." The young psychologist, who understood Mrs. Lowry perhaps better than she did herself, exited with a heavy heart.


End file.
